1. Technical Field
The invention disclosed broadly relates to the extraction of information from large bodies of data for high speed communication facilities and more particularly relates to realtime indirect addressing for high speed serial bit streams.
2. Related Patent Applications
This patent application is related to the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/024,572, filed Mar. 1, 1993, entitled "Information Collection Architecture and Method for a Data Communications Network," by J. G. Waclawsky, et al., (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,070 issued Dec. 20, 1994) assigned to the IBM Corporation and incorporated herein by reference.
This patent application is also related to the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/024,563, filed Mar. 1, 1993, abandoned, entitled "Event Driven Interface for a System for Monitoring and Controlling a Data Communications Network," by P. C. Hershey, et al., assigned to the IBM Corporation and incorporated herein by reference.
This patent application is also related to the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/024,542, filed Mar. 1, 1993, U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,689, entitled "System and Method for Configuring an Event Driven Interface and Analyzing Its Output for Monitoring and Controlling a Data Communications Network," by J. G. Waclawsky, et al., assigned to the IBM Corporation and incorporated herein by reference.
This patent application is also related to the copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/138,045, filed Oct. 15, 1993, entitled "System and Method for Adaptive, Active Monitoring of a Serial Data Stream Having a Characteristic Pattern," by P. C. Hershey, et al., assigned to the IBM Corporation and incorporated herein by reference.
3. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The invention disclosed herein is related to the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/024,575, filed Mar. 1, 1993 entitled "Event Driven Interface for a System for Monitoring and Controlling a Data Communications Network" by P. C. Hershey, et al., (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,365,514 issued Nov. 14, 1994) assigned to the IBM Corporation and incorporated herein by reference.
In the prior art data communications networks such as the IBM token ring network, for example, a data frame will include a destination address field and an information field. If the data frame is to remain within the same token ring network, then there is no additional routing information necessary to accomplish transferring the data frame from the source to the destination nodes. However, if a first token ring network is connected by means of a bridge to a second token ring network, where the second token ring network has a different address base than does the first token ring network, then additional routing information is necessary in the data frame. An additional routing information will include information related to the address of the destination node in the second token ring network. It can be seen that as additional token ring networks are connected by corresponding bridges, that as consecutive networks must be traversed to transport a data frame from a source node to a destination node, the size of the routing information in the data frame increases. This can be seen to be a variably sized field within the data frame. In the prior art, the routing information and other fields within the data frame would be analyzed by receiving the data frame in a buffer and through appropriate programs in the receiving node, analyzing the respective fields of the frame to extract destination address information, routing information, and information in the information field itself. If the location of some of the fields such as the information field depends upon a variably sized intervening field such as routing field, then the programs in the preceding node would take that into consideration in locating the information field being sought.
What is needed in the prior art is a means to locate and interpret fields in a data stream on a realtime basis, even if variably sized intervening fields occur in the data frame.